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My grandmother kept me out late tonight.

A few weeks ago she decided to break down and finally get a computer. For the second time. She did this once before, but sadly her first-generation iMac was never touched. So last weekend, we took a trip to the Apple store and bought her a beautiful new 20″ iMac and Canon MP620 wireless printer.

When we took it back to their house, I spent my time running updates and just getting it physically set up and connected. I also spent a little bit of time explaining to my grandmother what each of the icons in her dock meant. I went back tonight to finish the updates and to teach her some basics of how to use the machine.

I didn’t realize just how basic we’d have to get.

I take it for granted that I’ve basically been around computers all of my life. My brother had early Atari computers that stored data on a cassette tape (and doubled as a gaming platform). We did spelling lessons on old Commodores when I was in 3rd grade. Computer literacy was a required course my 8th grade year. I bought my first computer my senior year of high school. Now, I make my living “doing the internet.”

Tonight, we went through the very fundamentals of computer use: how to hold the mouse, how to click and double-click, how to select text, how to select a field with the cursor so that you can type in it. She’s an excellent student and is starting to get it, but I think we’ve got a long way to go before she opens a Flickr account, much less learns any keyboard shortcuts.

I’m lucky to be blessed with a fair amount of patience. That made tonight enjoyable. Of course, the perfectly-mixed Makers Mark and Diet Coke (thanks to my granddad) helped.